THE SHOT — Shane, in Ohama, Nebraska, writes in to express his horror at finding “just three” gay magazines at his local Borders. “And I found them at the very back of the racks, behind: Pornography and magazines promoting marijuana. Which is illegal in my state of Nebraska.” To be fair, Details is there too, so technically that’s four gay mags.

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24 Comments

Json

Don’t gay people read blogs now-a-days, not magazines? I know I’ve read more than one study saying we’re much more blog-oriented…I would imagine there would be a higher volume of magazine sales for porn and marijuana compared to gay issues in Omaha, Nebraska. Sometimes we need to remember we’re less than 10% of the overall population.

Rick Brannon

PopSnap

Me too. Uhh… and? What’s the point? Yippee for this random guy from Omaha I guess.

August 10, 2010 at 1:08pm

Clint

Yeah, Borders sucks big surprise.

August 10, 2010 at 1:08pm

CJ

At the Borders in my town, the “gay” magazines are in the lifestyle section, not the (heterosexual) porn section.

August 10, 2010 at 1:08pm

ForeverGay

Very haterosexual. Put the gay magazines in the porn section because haterosexuals always associate gay people with sex and gay people plus sex always equals bad for haterosexuals. Haterosexuals believe gay people are inferior to them so put the magazine in the back. These attitudes affect everything relating to gay people. You will notice that gay related information is usually placed on the bottom of a biography on Wikipedia.

August 10, 2010 at 1:08pm

hephaestion

Is that Ohama or Omaha?

August 10, 2010 at 1:08pm

Baxter

They sell porn at Borders? I think that’s the most shocking thing in this story.

August 10, 2010 at 1:08pm

Mike

@Alan Brickman: wtf are you talking about? You can get all the gay mags at any Chapters or McNally bookstore in Winnipeg. They are not plastic wrapped nor are they stocked with the porn or drug magazines. They are usually in the “men’s interest” or “gay and lesbian” section.

Incidentally, the magazine store at the Winnipeg Airport (the one before security) has the best offering of queer mags of any airport magazine store in Canada. For the longest time, they even sold “Freshman” magazine, which WAS plastic-wrapped. I could never figure out who would leaf through an actual gay porn magazine on an airplane.

August 10, 2010 at 2:08pm

B

No. 10 · Mike wrote, “I could never figure out who would leaf through an actual gay porn magazine on an airplane.”

You might as well be outraged about Best Buy not selling black & white tube tv’s anymore. I love reading magazines but now I do it online…or like most of my frineds, just get an ipad or an amazon reader. Every single magazine out there is in financial trouble and about to go under because nobody is buying them anymore…so who really cares?

August 10, 2010 at 4:08pm

John

still don’t get why DETAILS is considering a gay magazine along with GQ and ESQUIRE.

as a reader of OUT, GENRE, and DNA, I don’t see how DETAILS will fill the void or articles or eye candy that REAL gay magazines have

August 10, 2010 at 4:08pm

Mike

@John: it’s kind of a running joke that Details is a gay magazine. It’s not, really but it sure does have tons of content that most gay men find appealing. It also would appeal to the liberal-minded straight guys…i.e. the ones who wouldn’t be caught dead with an issue of Maxim

August 10, 2010 at 5:08pm

Jimmy Fury

This is news?
And why hasn’t anybody called Shane out on being a liar? There are only 2 mags in front of the gay magazines and they’re both High Times. The porn is on the other end of the shelf on the *other* side of all the Tattoo Mags, Heavy Metal, and Bizarre. None of which is porn. *AND* there aren’t any gay mags on that back shelf. So no, they’re not all on the back shelf behind the porn and pot magazines, they’re on the middle shelves behind 2 pot magazines which have to be on the front because High Times pays for premium shelf space.

Having worked at borders and been in charge of the mags I would also like to point out that on the other side of the shelf divider those are Photography magazines. So the gay mags are actually closer to the Art section than the Porn.

Basically, those magazine sections are about 10 times too small for the product Borders Employees have to cram in there. Sometimes things get moved because they won’t fit anywhere else and Political Correctness be damned.

Plus in all likelihood shane has nothing to bitch about because he wasn’t going to buy the damn things anyway. He, like 90% of borders customers, was probably going to go sit in the cafe, read them, then leave them on the table because it’s oh so difficult to put them back where you got them…

There’s a reason I don’t work at Borders any more…

August 10, 2010 at 6:08pm

patrick

@Jimmy Fury: It doesn’t sound like you should work for JetBlue either……

August 10, 2010 at 6:08pm

Jimmy Fury

Sorry, but I’ve notice this a lot too. Gay mags are usually BEHIND the porn and behind the pot magazines. It’s unreal non-pornographic gay magazines are somehow more “deviant” then magazine which promote habits which either land you in jail or those which you must be 18 or older to read about.

I have a habit of going to Target, for example, and taking The Advocate, if they even have it, from the very back row and moving it to the front. There’s only been one book store, Books A Million, I’ve been to (and, no, I don’t know if it’s a chain policy), which places the gay lifestyle magazines out in front just like every other lifestyle magazine.

For those who think this article is bunk obviously haven’t been to too many bookstores.

my friend said when he buys mags at chapters the women act they are packaging dead fish amd making faces…nice….hope this doesn’t happen to you….

August 10, 2010 at 10:08pm

Jon

As someone who actually frequents Borders, let me point out that this shelf space is for magazines that pertain to specific subcultures and special interests. When Borders actually feels like carrying Gothic Beauty (which is a totally G-rated magazine), it ends up here as well. I hate to break it to you, but if you have a magazine that is geared towards only a specific segment of the population, then it belongs on that shelf. Sorry if you don’t personally like the other subcultures it’s forced to share space with.